Tag: Tops

I would like to announce that I am personally thrilled with all the cool and weird sleeves that pattern companies are drafting these days. I’m always behind trends and haven’t sewn any of the bell and bishop sleeves that have been coming out, but I’ve been buying a few patterns here and there for when the urge strikes.

I did sew up a couple of unusual big-sleeved beauties earlier this year – one of them was probably the first project of 2016.

I’d made it once before as a dress. This time, I raised the neckline by 1″, did some kind of weird square/forward shoulder adjustment that I can’t remember, widened the hips to fit my measurements, and cropped it at a shirt length because I wanted to use up some larger silk CDC scraps.

Ultimately, I wish I’d left the neckline lower but narrowed it. I could use a sway back adjustment. I still like it and wear it though. This pattern – designed by Vena Cava – is so cool and unusual, and construction is fun but not overly complicated origami.

Then in July, I made a new McCall’s pattern, 7325, in a black cotton voile.

I narrowed the bib based on my design preferences, and cuffed/tacked the sleeves. I also added some vintage cotton ribbon from Nancy’s Sewing Basket as trim.

I think part of the cotton was rancid, because it washed away. I still like the visual effect enough not to remove it.

In addition to both of these projects featuring big, fluffy cuffed sleeves, they are both sewn out of fabrics I don’t really love. Voile is very irritating to me, for some reason! It’s evasive during cutting and sewing, sheer but with body, and attracts lint. Silk CDC is a pleasure to sew and beautiful to look at, but there’s something about it that puts me off from wearing it very often. Still, I like both of these projects and the black top saw quite a bit of wear during the summer months.

I’ve had some time off lately, and have been doing quite a bit of sewing. I have this crazy idea I can blog what I’ve made, plus a couple other unblogged stragglers, before the end of the year – three shirts, four dresses, and denim trousers in total. (Let’s just ignore the two shirts and pair of jeans I sewed my husband). Wish me luck!

Every time I make some kind of pronouncement – like “Hey, I’m into sewing colorful fabrics now!” – I seem to go out of my way to defy myself. Well, it’s happened again. No sooner had I written that post did I sew a string of neutral projects.

In addition to these nine (!) projects, I sewed a couple of grey pieces in March. One is a total success and the other a total failure that I could use some input on.

First up – the success! These pants are sewn up in a thick linen woven using Vogue 8909.

I’ve sewn the pattern up three times before, blogged only once as part of a tiger costume.

This time, I shifted the front seams in by another inch and added 2″ of ease to the hips in the rear. I like my hip ease. I’d also shortened the rise by 1″ in an earlier iteration (and as you can see, they are by no means low-rise even after the alteration.)

I also lowered the back yoke line by 1″. These are my dream lounge pants, but nice enough (I think? I hope?) to wear to my casual-ish desk job.

And now, the fail: a longline cardigan based on McCall’s 6886.

To be clear, I think the pattern was a good choice for this project. I altered McCall’s 6886 to include a front opening and a low v-neck. I also think these photos of the cardigan look GREAT.

The fail is due to the fabric. I washed this 100% wool sweater knit on cold, and dried it in the machine. (Worth noting: I am cavalier with most fabrics. For a pre-wash, I machine wash and dry almost everything except coatings and lace. I baby my fabrics later by minimizing washings and line-drying, but I like to minimize surprises if a piece accidentally gets thrown in the wash.) No unexpected shrinkage, BUT the grainline shifted dramatically. The horizontal striations were now at a jaunty angle. After consulting with the fabric seller, I had mostly straightened it by dampening it and blocking it. So I cut and sewed it and was happy with it. As I wore it, the side seams began to skew but not so terribly that I wouldn’t wear it.

But, as time went on, the fabric relaxed, especially in the arm scye. Back it went into the washer/dryer, after which the side seams skewed dramatically to the point where the buttons now form a diagonal line across my front. Not only that, but the button band edges now form a very ripply fold.

I’m not here to blame the seller, because I think every fabric care suggestion would tell me not to put wool sweater knit into a washer or dryer. But, I am curious – is this sweater knit intrinsically off-grain or did I make it so?

I have a yard or so left, and my thought is to sew something leaving the striations slanted and let the fabric do what it wants to do. I see quite a few RTW garments do that, so while it’s not my favorite look, I wouldn’t be conspicuous and the fabric wouldn’t go to waste.

Lastly, I shall leave you with a bonus project – the black tank I’m wearing with both of these grey projects!

It’s another McCall’s 6886 in black viscose, bringing my neutral sewing total up to twelve pieces. It’s quickly become one of my most-worn pieces as my two black RTW tanks (purchased in 2008 and 2011) disintegrate. I love the drape of the fabric.

Thanks for stopping by, and please do share any knowledge you might have about knit fabric grainlines!

Hey, everybody! I ended up finishing my skirt and enjoyed THE CRAP out of myself at the wedding, which was held at a ranch in Mendocino County. In addition to attending the wedding, we stayed on the ranch for four days, doing everything from swimming, dancing, hefting around benches for the ceremony, running around the nearby small town, connecting with old friends and making some new ones. The wedding itself was a no-photography sort of affair, so I’ll try and get share pics of the finished skirt soon.

But let’s back up a bit, shall we, and take a look at a slightly older project?

A couple of weeks ago, I was completely and utterly fooled by a Burdastyle pattern. I take a foolish amount of pride in being adept at avoiding patterns that are only a couple of alterations away from my bodice sloper or patterns I already own. Not this time! A not-very-critical look reveals that this pattern is simply a dartless block with a yoke and horizontal seam lines.

Well, I do consistently lose my restraint when there’s a yoke in play. And after I finished softly berating myself and turned my attention to basting my garment for fitting, I noticed that the yoke had truly beautiful proportions. $5.99 for a gorgeous yoke shape doesn’t seem so terrible!

I did choose to baste-fit instead of making a muslin. I’ll do this when I’m pretty sure a pattern won’t have more than minor fit tweaks like adjusting the shoulder seam or taking in the sides. I’ve found that Burdastyle patterns are pretty good on my top half. Before baste-fitting, I added my usual 1/2″ square shoulder adjustment to the back only, and graded to one size smaller through the bust while keeping the shoulders and waist a larger size. I left 1″ of shoulder seam allowance in addition to my square shoulder adjustment, but I didn’t need it.

After fitting, I took additional ease from the bust – maybe 1.5″ total – grading to nothing at the hem and scooped the armholes.

I also skipped the shoulder wings and bound the armholes with bias binding I made. I love how they look on others, but they simply extend my already square and broad shoulders.

I used flat piping around the yoke only, skipping it on the tank pieces. The seam lines on the silver fabric stand on their own, you know?

This was mostly a stash project. I bought two yards of silver coated linen from Mood a few years ago for this dress and received something like four yards. Pretty sure it has some sneaky polyester in it. The yoke is the dull side of the fabric. I did buy some accent fabric for the flat piping.

I’ve worn this over top of light sweaters and my denim shift dress, and as a tank top over jeans or this (unblogged) black Gabriola below. I love it! I was a bit pissy when my husband likened it to a Star Trek alien costume, mid-construction – I think I was feeling insecure about all the shine and seam lines could look like an insect thorax. He got to roll his eyes when I showed him the final piece and proudly proclaimed that I did in fact feel like I was a TNG character, but in a good way.

In spite of slapping my forehead when I realized how simple this pattern was, I really like it and will probably use it again. And look what Sax Silverain did with print-mixing on hers!

You may recognize this pattern – it’s Vogue 8926, and I sent it off to Sally for our Sew Bossy exchange. I was more than a little envious of her final piece and had meant to sew one up for myself ever since I laid eyes on hers!

Based on my own fit quirks, I made the following adjustments to fit my broad/square shoulders and small bust:

small bust adjustment, removing 2″ total from the bust

square shoulder adjustment

I also lengthened the ties by nearly double and finished the sleeve hems by hand.

The fabric was a gift from Sanae and I made my own binding. I waffled between white and grey binding more than I’d care to admit. Grey won, as per usual!

What I like, nay, love about this top is it’s a very simple sew (aside from two pivoted seams) with high style impact. I haven’t seen too many other patterns out there like this one and wouldn’t mind having one or two more of these in my wardrobe. Wouldn’t it be great in white as an alternative to a classic buttoned shirt?

I made this top about a month ago, before I cut myself off from any more non-wedding sewing. In a series of escalating (sewing) dares, I found myself making a bra/corset contraption for my sister. My sister possesses a similar figure to mine – broad upper back, smaller bust and rib cage – all of which make strapless designs creep towards the waist. After extensive shopping, all she could find were strapless bras that unflatteringly squeezed her back in order to stay up. I decided to create her undergarment as a time-saving device so we could continue fitting the bodice. I converted the dress bodice pattern, which is bustier-style, into a bra pattern and reduced the ease dramatically as I was using powernet.

As someone who is completely satisfied with bralettes, I was grateful for the bra-making craze that’s swept through the blogging community. I surprised myself by having a basic knowledge of the supplies – I must have absorbed that by osmosis! Big thanks to Cloth Habit’s fantastic bra-making sewalong, too.

There’s lots of things I would do differently now that I’ve tried my hand at it, like make it longer, lowering the bridge, using sheet foam instead of molded cups, etc, but I think it’s going to work for our purposes.

I’ve been working hard to focus on my sister’s wedding dress, but quite a few so-called palate cleanser projects have sneaked their way in. One was directly influenced by my sister’s dress – I’ll be attaching Sewaholic’s glorious Gabriola skirt pattern onto the bodice.

I sewed the skirt in muslin and couldn’t resist trying it on myself. I rarely wear skirts these days, but the instant I put it on, I fell hard for this design. I’d always admired it but just couldn’t imagine myself looking like, well, myself, in it. The muslin was convincing enough to lead me to believe that I should sew up a practice version in appropriately flowing fabric to use during bodice fittings that I could ultimately keep for myself.

Who was I to argue?

After combing the internet and local fabric shops for an interesting viscose print, I surprised myself by settling on a loud floral print. The color wasn’t quite what I’d hoped so I dyed over it with a lovely blue and used the wrong side.

There have been a lot of these gorgeous skirts shared on other blogs, so I’ll just give you my construction bullet points:

I changed the front waistband from a rectangle to a curve

I did a lapped zipper (stabilized by a silk organza strip) and made the button tab overlap longer

I wish I’d stabilized the front and back chevron panels because they distorted over time. The skirt is heavy in viscose and you can still see that those panels can’t fully support the weight of the skirt.

Even after grading down a size in the hips, I still had to take some extra width out – perhaps due to the distortion mentioned above

By reducing the flare at the bottom of the skirt by a few inches, I was able to sew my skirt on 2.5 yards of 55″ fabric instead of the recommended 3.5 yards.

How could I not put that extra yard to use in a matching top?

I used my sloper and my trusty ol’ Helen Joseph-Armstrong textbook and made a bias-cut cowl-neck top. I love how the dark floral motif looks like a big dramatic necklace.

I think this getup (and maybe even the skirt on its own?) is just a *smidge* too dressy for work so I’m eagerly awaiting the first opportunity to bust it out. Wearing yards of viscose from head to toe is like being swathed in a fluffy dream cloud – certainly something to look forward to.

My sewing recently has been quite practical – coat, jeans, shirts, blue, white, grey. Everything about this project took me by surprise… and I liked it.

Like many, I’ve been taken with the raglan-sleeved sweatshirt trend. I had a vintage 1980s pattern in my stash, which turned out to be disastrously large through the armpits, chest and sleeves. (Every time I’m facing extensive pattern changes, there seems to be a McCall’s/Butterick/Vogue sale and a pattern that promises to save me from my fit issues.)

I bought McCall’s 6992 and tried it out using a thrifted jersey sheet. I used my hip size all around, but the bust came out huge. And my sister, bless her heart, tried to hide the wrinkles by pulling the shirt down before taking a picture. I felt like a cat with a coat on.

Here I am, trying to get that blouson feeling back.

And here’s the usual swayback scene.

For Version 2, I traced a smaller size up top graded to the larger one through the hips. I used some organic cotton French terry and honest-to-goodness RIBBING! And please enjoy a liberal dose of wrinkles, because I’ve been living and sleeping in this sweatshirt.

One element that wasn’t clear to me from my research or the pattern art is that the one-piece sleeve has a shoulder dart. At first I was irritated to sew a dart into knit fabric, but it really improves the shape.

Satisfied with the fit, I began working on what was my ultimate goal: a raglan-sleeved sweater-knit dress. The only initial change I made was extending the hem. I also underlined the front and back (with cotton-hemp jersey from a failed dye experiment) because the fabric was scratchy. It was supposedly a wool/acetate blend and felt a good deal cheaper / a lot less wooly than its price tag led me to believe.

After basting together the pieces, I trimmed down the arm/side seam multiple times. I also added a hem band at the bottom and finished the neck and sleeve hems using – surprise! – this tutorial – which adapted quite nicely to my sweater knit.

I hated every minute of sewing this fabric, but I like the dress quite a bit; it’s warm and easy to wear. There might be some room for improvement in the fit of the back raglan seams, but it’s comfortable.

And speaking of raglans, my coat progress continues. I figured out the main problem with the back fit and added a whopping 3/4″ to the back shoulder seam. Everything fell into place!

I still have some work to do on my lining pattern pieces, but I was starting to feel scattered and kind of hopeless I’d never get to start sewing with my real fabric. So, I’ve begun constructing the shell! I began with the back, just to get my bearings with the fabric and underlining on a simpler piece.

So the verdict after all this raglan-ing? I’m not sure the raglan is the best design for me, as my shoulders are supremely broad and square, but I appear to be riding this silhouette until the wheels fall off.

As I mentioned in this post, I re-visited the Rebecca Taylor pattern (Vogue 1367) to emulate an Isabel Marant tunic I’ve had a crush on for a few years. A super-stylish former coworker of mine has the shirt version, so I got to admire it in person a number of times. It only fanned the flames of inspiration!

I adapted the pattern in the following ways:

Added 8″ to the front and back pieces below the yoke

Made separate pieces for the curved hems, cutting two of each to create hem facings

Split the front yoke into two pieces

Added flat-piping to the front and back yoke seams to emulate the original’s raglan sleeves

Added trim down the front

The trim and flat-piping I used were actually precisely-cut pieces of printed quilting cotton. I searched high and low for the right trim, ribbon, whatever, with no luck! Most of my wardrobe is quite unembellished, and it’s highly possible I didn’t know where to look.

Even though the design is printed and not woven like I was hoping, I love the final effect.

The main fabric was a serendipitous acquisition. I like the cruise the thrift store for fabric, and came across a lovely lightweight linen! It was an unpalatable-to-me brownish-creamish color, but at $5ish for over 2 yards, I swooped it up. I dyed over it with a blue-ish black. Weirdly, it didn’t get much darker, but it cooled off the offending warm tones.

The curved hems are quite deep, which makes this more of a tunic than a dress. I just couldn’t force my sweaty little legs into leggings when my sister and I were taking pictures!

I was surprised by the broad back of the sleeveless version I made, but in making this version, I learned that it’s because these sleeves are very upright. (Is that the right word for it? They are angled parallel to the side seams.) They look quite voluminous in the pattern photography, but in real life they’re fairly fitted at the top with no gathering. I love a poufy sleeve and would add some gathers at the top if I made this pattern again.

I started this project shortly after my sleeveless version and finished it over a month. It’s not a complicated project, but I sewed slowly and took my time making design decisions. I tend to have plain tastes, so I can easily talk myself out of extra details or modifications. Since I was inspired by someone else’s design, however, it was fun to study and mimic the details as closely as I could.

I’d actually hoped to make this tunic during Shield Maiden March but wasn’t able to secure supplies or sort out patterns and modifications in a timely manner – basically, I had nothing I needed to make it happen! Consider this my (6-month late) submission, please.

Last year, Kelly made the Liesl & Co Everday Skirt. Since then, I’ve engaged in a monthly debate with myself – buy the pattern or try to approximate it on my own? “It’s a gathered skirt with an elastic waistband in the back – how hard could it be?” would be countered with “Do you really want to spend the time measuring out rectangles and tracing pocket facings?” The price seemed a bit high for the pattern. Finally, Katie sewed up her version and her verdict of “I was tempted to go the self-draft route for my dream skirt, but this pattern is basically it” pushed me over the edge.

I haven’t been sorry. There are a lot of things to like about this skirt design: the flat side panels, back elastic waistband, nice pocket placement all come to mind. I’m not even a skirt person, but I love this one. And from a logistical standpoint, I was impressed. The PDF downloads directly from a link in your email receipt, there’s a print at shop version included and the print layout is delightfully lean. This was easily my best experience with a PDF pattern to date.

I made a test skirt in my kimono fabric and decided to remove some width from the back panel. I wanted it the waistband at my natural waist, and the shortness of the back elastic I needed made the back panel very gathered and pretty heavy. It’s still more gathered than the front, so if I make this a third time, I’ll play around with shortening the front waistband to lengthen the back out. After my trial, I knew I wanted to make it in a special piece of linen and bought a straight-up new piece of fabric for the occasion.

I bought 1.5 yards of 60″ wide linen (the pattern suggests 1.75) but I miraculously had enough to create a cropped tank AND join Sophie’s super fun two-piece party!

Unlike the skirt, the top is actually self-drafted. I started working on a bodice block last winter, with beyond-generous help from Maddie, who shared her pattern-making knowledge and gently let me know that my neck couldn’t possibly be as small as I’d measured it to be, the fit expertise of my friend Casey, and Nathan, who helped me take endless rounds of measurements while I shivered convulsively in a chalked-up bathing suit. I worked on it in spurts and finally translated it onto tagboard last month. From there, I consulted Helen Joseph-Armstrong’s Patternmaking for Fashion Design to make a flared dartless tank and borrowed the Wiksten tank neckline. I wanted it to be boxy to emphasize the fitted skirt waist.

Victory! It fits!

Someday soon, I’ll share how weird my block looks. My back and front bodice pieces don’t even look like they belong together… unlike this top and skirt!

I’ll be back in a few days on the Sewcialist blog as I’m helping out with the September challenge. Get ready to bust through your scraps during SCRAPTEMBER (yep, I had to go there). Until then, I leave you with this:

I’ve been having a major Rebecca Taylor moment. Now there’s a designer who knows her way around both yokes and gathers. I bought one of her newer Vogue patterns, 1367, and wanted to try a sleeveless wearable muslin before using it to mimic an Isabel Marant design I’ve been taken with for a few years.

The yoke is three different pieces (front, back, and shoulders), which affords some opportunity for fun piecing.

I chose coated metallic linen for the front and back (fabric last seen here) with textured hot pink silk shoulders (fabric from SCRAP). The gathered bodice fabric is an organic-cotton hemp scrap left over from a quilt for my new nephew.

The instructions suggest sewing the neck binding to the inside and turning it out and top-stitching. Maybe this is for aesthetic reasons, but it sounded like a recipe for a sloppy-looking finish! I did the opposite. I did follow the top-stitching instructions, however.

I also bound the armholes with 3/8″ SA after shaving off 1/4″ (since they were designed for sleeves and the corners meet up with the sleeves quite precisely.)

You’ll have to take my word that the back hemline is also curved. This is what happens when you put a native Washingtonian in a hot car without AC and fully functioning windows.

Also, the back yoke seem was astoundingly wide, but – as I learned later – it’s probably because of the sharp angle of how the sleeve meets the bodice.

I suppose it goes without saying that I love this design. I try to buy patterns that are unique, and alter patterns I’ve already fitted to try new styles, but my weakness for yokes and gathers got the better of me. I probably could have hacked the Mathilde pattern to get this look, but since I’ve been back at a desk job, my sewing hours feel more precious. Spending a few dollars instead of hours sounded appealing.

And then there’s the Rebecca Taylor factor… I’m just really into her right now. Do you have a designer crush?

I found myself with a hankering to replace my dissatisfying black pants during May. I found them at the thrift store a few years ago, and never loved them even after slimming the leg and cropping the hem but never hated them enough to stop wearing them when jeans wouldn’t do.

These were also the pants I used on my waistband finish tutorial. I love how they turned out, but they were giving me grief from the moment I finished the tutorial. Part of it was the unpredictable fabric – there’s quite a bit of stretch I hadn’t anticipated when I’d bought it, and the waistband was dramatically wider. I usually baste the outer waistband to the pants, staystitching the top, to make sure there are no surprises. I felt overly confident using a pattern I’d worked with before and stitched/understitched my outer and inner waistbands together. Taking apart and altering a finished waistband is the pits. And though it’s much better, the problem wasn’t completely solved by taking excess out of the waistband; the fabric grows quite a bit during the day.

The silver lining to all this unpcking was that in doing so, I realized I’d only basted the outseams together! I’m glad I caught them before a tearaway pants moment occurred.

Oh, and I put in single-welt pockets in the back and forgot to take pics of them! I referred to Melanie’s wonderful tutorial again. I slip-stitched the welts closed as I never use back pockets for anything other than breaking up an expanse of rump.

I love these pants (in spite of? because of?) the struggles and I’m not done with this pattern by a long shot.

I also made another BHL Polly top! I scored this fantastic cloud-printed quilting cotton at – where else – Our Fabric Stash. One of my good friends, Jen, is getting interested in sewing garments, and we chose the Polly top as her first project. Of course, I had to be companionable and sew one up, too.

This time around, I ditched the cap sleeves I’d made as part of my tiger costume. I revisited the fit, and concluded that I needed more length through the upper chest. I added 1/2″ to the pattern. I did a square shoulder adjustment as before, but added 3/8″ on the outside rather than subtracting it from the inside. Jen shortened her straps a bit after trying it on. I think this picture is a pretty good indication of how long I must be through the chest.

It’s much more comfortable than my other version, but some pesky wrinkles crept in next to the armpits. (The wrinkles at the bottom were from wearing this top two days in a row.) It’s not too tight anywhere – any wrinkle-readers out there know what might have caused them?

And I think it’s really time I started making swayback adjustments. I’ve been fighting this one for a long time. Any favorite tutorials out there? Or maybe I’ll just keep my back curved forward for now…